Hosiery



R. H. OSWALD Dec. 1 9, 1 933.

HOSIERY Filed Sept. 17. 1930 gwvenkqv Zllchard Oswald,

Patented Dec.v 19, 1933 HOSIERY Richard H. Gswald, Philadelphia, Pa.

Application September 17, 1930 Serial No. 482,403

1 Claim.

The object of the invention is to provide improvements in hosierybroadly, but more particularly in the shape of the heel portion, and themethod of automatically forming the same 5 in a full fashioned knittingmachine.

Heretofore, the wales of Yeach lateral side of the heel portion, aftervrunning parallel for a distance, have been made to curve towards acentral narrowing, by gradually discontinuing the wales progressivelyfrom the center of each side in opposite directions, so that a taper isformed. However, as all of the wales do not terminate in such narrowing,the outermost wales extend to the normally lower end of the heel, andthose upon the opposite sides of the heel are secured together by meansof a seam, which unites.. at the rear with the back seam whichcharacterizes full-fashioned hosiery, with the result that anobjectionable angulark extension or oset is formed. This angularportion, falling as it does beneath the center of the heel of the weareris most undesirable, as it can seldom be stretched out fully andresultingly folds over and presents a triple thickness of material upon'which the wearer must walk.

The object therefore has been to produce a heel portion of a naturalshape and to so revise the method of forming the heel portion that itwill be free from irregular extensions and in general conforming closelyto the shape of the heel of the wearer, and for this purpose to make theproper alterations in the hosiery knitting mechanism and operation ofthe same.

With these and other objects in mind, the present invention comprisesfurther details of construction and operation, which are fully broughtout in the following description, when read in conjunction with theaccompanying drawing, in which Fig. 1 is a fragmentary side elevation ofan improved piece of hosiery embodying the invention; Fig. 2 is afragmentary front elevationof a portion of a well-known type of hosieryknitting machine; Fig. 3 is a fragmentary end elevation of anotherportion of such machine; and Fig. 4 is a front elevation of that portionof the machine shown in Fig. 3. According to the invention, wales 20form the improved heel and each side of the heel cons. or,

sists of forward groups or sets 21 and rear groups or sets 22. The walesof sets 21 are in parallel relation throughout, while those wales in theset 22 at their upper portions are parallel with the wales 21 but attheir lower Aportions are arcuate and terminate at the rearmost wale 21so that a single wale contains the vmechanism diiers from the actualshape of the line of fashioning marks. The rear seam 24 as a resultconforms to a substantially true arc and merges into a bottom seam 25which connects the lower ends of the sets of parallel wales 21.

Referring now to Figs. 2, 3 and 4, these represent portion of a Readingfull-fashioned knitting machine as illustrated in the July 1929 issue ofthe Parts catalog of the Textile Machine Works, of Reading,Pennsylvania. Above the usual needle bar 1 are positioned the oppositelymovable narrowing rods 2 and,3, to which are fixed the respectivenarrowing combs 4 and 5 carrying sets of points 4 and 5'. The relativemovement of thenarrowing rods and the corresponding combs iseffected inwell-known manner through various mechanical elements (not shown), whichare moved intermittently by a ratchet pawl 6 for the forward movementand a second pawl 7 for the backward movement 75 of the narrowing head,said pawls respectively engaging ratchets 8 and 9 having oppositelydirected teeth. Both of these ratchets Iare carried by a common shaft10, whichalso carries a lock dial 11 with which engages a retaininglatch 12.

In the normaloperation of the machine of which these several elementsform a part, after the upper portion of the usual heel has been formedwith its wales all in parallel relation, the narrowing combs aresimultaneously moved inwardly or towards each other two notches, thatis, the width of two of their respective points, by engagement of thefirst pawl 6 with its ratchet 8, after which said combs aresimultaneously moved outwardly or away from each other a distance of asingle notch or point, by reason of the engagement of the second pawl 7with its ratchet 9. The movement of this lastnamed pawl is limited tobut one ratchet tooth, or point of the lock dial, by reason of itscutaway portion 14 being of less vertical extent than that shown in Fig.3, the shape illustrated representing the extent to which the improved00 parts illustratedl in the above-named catalog. However, with anincrease in the length of said cut-away portion of the second pawl asillustrated, the pawl is permitted to engage a Second tooth insteady ofbut one each time it moves downwardly, and thereby cause the combs tomove outwardly a distance of two notches or points, or a distanceexactly equal to that to which they are previously moved inwardly by thepawl 6` f of wales rearwardly of the said rst groups of wales completingthe heel, said rear groups of wales having their upper portions parallelwith each other and with the first groups of wales, and the lowerportions of said second groups of wales being substantially arcuate andrespectively extending to the single rearmost wale of each of themst-mentioned groups of wales. said rearmost single wales thuscontaining the lines of fashioning marks.

RICHARD H. OSWALD.

